Australia: Part Two (Workaway in the Bush)

We arrived in Ballina a couple of hours before our Workaway host got off work so we waited at the tiny, although incredibly busy, airport. When the time got closer we went outside and watched for his "Ute," which is what the Australians use to describe a "Utility vehicle" which we would just call a pickup truck. Our new host, David, greeted us with a smile and helped us load up our bags before we set off on the hour-long drive upward and inland to the town of The Channon. On the way we passed through the town of Lismore, where David and his wife Rachel both work. In March, Lismore and much of the surrounding area had been hit with a devastating flood that had put most of the town under water (the water was so deep that it completely covered many two-story, and some three-story, buildings. The damage that we saw, even 4 months after the incident, was devastating. David let us know all about what had happened during the disaster and how the community was starting to recover.

Finally, we made it to their property in The Channon, which is about 25-30 minutes up a country road past Lismore. Rachel had a warm meal of pork, mashed potatoes, peas and carrots waiting for us. It felt just like a meal back home and was much needed that cold and wet evening (again, it's wintertime here!). We spent the evening swapping travel stories and exchanging info about our home countries before tucking away to bed before our first day of work. You might be asking why we decided to do another Workaway so close to the end of our journey, but the answer is pretty simple: like all Workaway experiences thus far we really wanted to 1) experience the local culture and meet local people and 2) save money! Australia is pretty damn expensive, after all, and especially so compared to our last three months in Southeast Asia.

This Workaway experience consisted of helping out on David and Rachel's hobby farm out in the Australian "Bush." Australia is an extremely large country with an insanely diverse landscape, but they pretty much always describe the area a couple of hours inland and out of the cities as the Bush. When you go even farther inward and more remote than that, you get the famous "Outback." If you are in the middle of nowhere, Australians will simply say you are out "Whoop Whoop." Don't worry, we'll publish a handy American-Australian dictionary when we're done here. David and Rachel's property consists of about 8 acres, with their house, a rental house (currently rented to a young family), and a small "studio" house where David's parents live. They have a dog (a sweet kelpie/lab mix named Jazz), two Alpacas (Indie and Harriet), 5 chickens (yet-to-be-named) and one rogue guinea-fowl. They also get plenty of other wildlife as wallabies and koalas frequent the area. We also immediately asked about snakes and spiders (Australia has deadly versions of both!) and learned that we should exercise a bit of caution on both, although we would likely not have too many close encounters.

Our first day of work started with pouring rain, but after the skies cleared up we spent the afternoon weeding the gardens, cleaning out the chicken coop, and weedeating some overgrown grass. They call their weed-whackers "whippersnippers" here and, after some thought, both the American and Australian name for the tool are just plain weird. We took Jazz out for an evening walk as we heard that on a recent check-up visit to the vet she was described as "shapely." It would also be good to note here that David and Rachel are really chill, laid back people with not too many rules. But one of those rules is that Jazz only gets one slice of cheese per day, although its clearly her favorite snack. Our walk with Jazz was really eye-opening as we didn't get to see much of the surrounding area when driving through the nighttime rain the day before. The Channon area is in a valley of beautiful rolling hills, alternating between dense forest and farmland. The area used to be a huge dairy-producer and much of the older houses and outbuilding still look that way (the tavern in town is actually called the Butter Factory Tavern as it was the old butter factory back in the day). What surprised us most was that many of the properties also had trees for oranges, nectarines, lemons, and passion fruit and there were large orchards of macadamia nuts! The next day we finished up our whipper-snapper and garden work and started tackling a huge pile of branches and logs, most of which were lemon-myrtle. We cut them down to size, put them in a wheel-barrow, and transplanted them from their roadside pile location to a sunken area at the back of the property. We spent that evening watching Thursday Night Footy, this time trying to figure out the rules of Australian Rugby League (with David's much-appreciated help).

Friday, weather-wise, was supposed to be a spectacular day so David suggest that we venture out, with Byron Bay as a recommended spot. So we left that morning at 6:45am with David on his way to work. He dropped us off at the bus stop where we caught the hour-long bus down to the coast to check out the town. Byron Bay is a small town full of cool restaurants and boutique cafes and bars. There is a pristine sand beach in the cove, which leads to a walking trail to an old lighthouse. The trail traces the cliffside and offers many glimpses out over the water. On our walk we saw dozens of dolphins splashing around near the shore, and humpback whales swimming, blowing out of their blowholes, and even occasionally jumping in the distance. After walking out to the lighthouse and back, we split a pizza and beers at the Byron Bay Hotel, which has a great outdoor space on the corner. As we were sort-of celebrating Nicole's birthday early, we rolled lunch straight into margaritas at a little taco shop, and a couple more beers at a bar that was in what was once the town train station. We made took the bus back to Lismore where David was waiting to pick us up. With the remaining daylight we were able to check out some of Lismore's eclectic mix of street art.

That night David's brother and his family (Graham, Kirsten, and Anna) were in town, so we ate some takeout Chinese food with them over at David's parents studio on the property. They were very interesting to talk to as they, like David and Rachel, were well traveled (Kirsten is actually from Germany). We also had our first Australia wildlife experience that night, but not the one we were hoping for: we found a Huntsman spider crawling in the dishwasher. This one was on the smaller side, about palm-sized from leg-to-leg. They get even bigger, though, sometimes reaching a foot-long leg span. After a slight freak-out, Kyle was able to capture it in some Tupperware and move it outside (where it is probably still lurking and plotting its revenge).

Saturday, with everyone home, was project day. We went to the local hardware store (Bunnings, which is just like a Home Depot) and picked up wood for fence posts and plater boxes. They call 2x4's "sleeper logs" here. We spent the day digging holes and laying posts with concretes for a fence for the to-be-expanded garden area. The posts were fairly large, as they were intended to support an alpaca-proof fence. David, Graham, and the others built a 4-sleeper high planter box for David's parents so that they could have a spring garden that was easy to plant and harvest. Late in the afternoon we had another cool Aussie wildlife experience as a flock of black Cockatoos flew in to some trees on the property. That evening we all went to the local Dunoon sportsmen club for fish 'n chips (Aussies use the name "chips" or "chippies" for both fries and potato chips). The food was great and they had a good selection of beers on tap, as well as live music playing outside.

On Sunday we did some additional work on the fence before we said our goodbyes to Graham and Co, then we headed with David and Rachel to Nimbin. Nimbin is Australia's unofficial "hippie" capital. They hosted a festival many years ago (the Aquarius festival) and legend goes that the hippies never left. Although marijuana is illegal in Australia, we were offered it about 10 times when strolling through the town. All of the the shops feature weed-related memorabilia and tie-dye and alternative clothing. There's even a Hemp store where everything is made out of hemp! We enjoyed a coffee (hopefully not laced with anything) and strolled through the shops before heading home. It was definitely a culture shock from the nitty-gritty farming community we had come out of. We went home after that and relaxed away the evening before starting another week of work.